Baseball’s Supernovae (Part One): Three Players Who Sizzled Then Fizzled

Nothing is more painful to a baseball franchise or a fan to experience the promise of an exciting first season and then watch that player fade into baseball mediocrity. Some call it the sophomore jinx. Here are three of those stories of unfulfilled promises:

Tom Umphlett
(Outfielder, Red Sox ’53, Senators ’54-’55)

Signed by the Boston Red Sox at the age of 19, Umphlett made his major league debut in 1953 shortly before turning 23 after impressing the Red Sox enough to replace Dom DiMaggio in center field. Umphlett’s rookie season was a promising one. During the ’53 season, Umphlett held the league lead in batting average for a short period and ended the season at .283. He finished second in voting for the American League Rookie of the Year Award behind Tigers’ shortstop Harvey Kuenn.

During the offseason, the Red Sox packaged Umphlett with another young talent, Mickey McDermott and shipped them both to the Washington Senators in exchange for right fielder Jackie Jensen. Recognized by baseball writers as one of the least talkative players in the league, Umphlett’s bat grew equally quiet in 1954. While Jensen thrived in Boston, Umphlett struggled in his sophomore session, hitting just .219 in 114 games. Umphlett’s doubles production decreased from 27 in ’53 to just 8 in ’54 and his On-Base Percentage dropped 76 points from .331 to .255.

The Senators also struggled in ’54 after two consecutive years of .500 ball; Washington fell to 22 games under .500. The offseason led to a change in skippers with Bucky Harris out and Chuck Dressen in as the new Senators manager. One of his pet projects – improve the confidence of the quiet Umphlett. Prior to the ’55 season, Dressen was briefed by Senators’ Vice-President Calvin Griffith that Bucky Harris mishandled Umphlett after his slow start in ’54 which led to Umphlett becoming “discouraged”.

Umphlett had to compete with a number of other players for the starting job and won it with some solid hitting in spring training. Unfortunately, Umphlett struggled again and soon the Senators made a mid-season move that included bringing in Johnny Groth via trade in early June. Groth and Umphlett split time as Umphlett’s average continued to hover around the .200 mark. The Senators also struggled and were on the verge of arguably the worst season in the history of baseball. By the end of the season, Umphlett’s average dropped again from the previous year from .219 to .217 and the Senators lost 101 games.

Umphlett’s offseason was filled with more change as Washington and Boston made a nine-player trade involving Umphlett. Umphlett was sent back to his original team along with Mickey Vernon, Johnny Schmitz and Bob Porterfield in exchange for Karl Olson, Dick Brodowski, Tex Clevenger, Neil Chrisley and Al Curtis. In addition, Umphlett was assigned to Boston’s new AAA affiliate in the American Association, the San Francisco Seals, and spent two seasons with the Seals.

The Red Sox switched affiliations in 1958 and Umphlett moved to the Minneapolis Millers of the American Association. He played for the Millers in their championship seasons in 1958 and 1959 and also won his first of three Silver Glove awards (the minor league equivalent of a Gold Glove) in 1958.Umphlett was traded to the Yankees along with cash for Billy Gardner in 1962 and continued his minor league career in the Yankees organization. He won a Silver Glove award in 1964 and 1965 and was named to the Southern League All-Star team in ’65. Unfortunately, Umphlett never made it back to the big leagues again. After retiring, Umphlett bounced around the minors as a manager.

It is interesting to note that Dom Dimaggio blamed the “hurrying” of Umphlett to the majors in ’53 as his reasoning for retiring from the game. Dimaggio detested being sent to the bench and retired after playing in just 3 games in ’53 following his seventh All-Star appearance in 1952. Although Umphlett flopped in the majors, the Red Sox did land a three-time All-Star and ’58 MVP winner in Jackie Jensen by moving Umphlett along with Mickey McDermott at the height of their value.

Coco Laboy
(Third Baseman, Expos ’69-’73)

It was a long, hard road to the majors for the Puerto Rican native. Signed at the age of 19 by the Giants, Laboy started off his minor league career by driving in 83 runs in his A ball stint. At 22, Laboy suffered a serious back injury and was told to step away from the game. But, despite his release from the Giants organization in ’62, Laboy refused to give up.

Laboy landed in the St. Louis Cardinals organization and their gamble looked like it would pay off when he had another strong minor league outing. In 1963, he hit .291 and slammed 21 home runs. Back on track, Coco suffered another setback in ’64. During a Carolina League game, he attacked Carl Middledorf with a bat after he felt he had been thrown at. The attack led to a 15-minute brawl and Laboy was arrested. Laboy pleaded guilty the next day and received a suspended sentence of 30-days, conditional to payment of a $20.25 fine. He was also suspended for three days and fined $25 by the Carolina League.

Laboy spent four more seasons in the minors and had a breakout year with the Tulsa Oilers in 1968. The Oilers, managed by Warren Spahn, won the Pacific Coast League championship and Laboy was the star of the team. He hit .292 with 15 home runs and 100 RBIs and was named to the PCL All-Star team. At 28, it looked like Laboy was finally going to get his shot at the majors when he was drafted in Round 54 of the 1968 Expansion Draft by the Expos, although Montreal was not expecting much.

He won the third base job out of spring training for the Expos and helped the Montreal franchise to their first win when he hit a 3-run eighth inning homer in their first game against the Mets, which Montreal won 11-10. Laboy tore it up in April, hitting safely in their first 5 games and 15 of the first 16 games of the season. Laboy hit .377 in April with 3 HRs and 14 RBIs. Laboy cooled off but still impressed in his rookie season. He ended the ’69 season at .258 with 18 HRs and 83 RBIs and played 157 games, and finished second in the N.L. Rookie of the Year voting behind Ted Sizemore.

Despite concerns his performance was affected by playing every day, Laboy headed back to Puerto Rico to play in the Winter League for the San Juan Senators and had a great season of winter ball. But the 1970 season was not as memorable as the summer of ’69. He struggled with the bat and was hitting .137 with no home runs after their May 20 game against the Mets. Expos skipper Gene Mauch stuck by Laboy and he was still able to get into 137 games in 1970 but hit a weak .199 with just 5 homers and 53 RBIs. Mauch was concerned that Laboy lost his excitement as he played every game in ’69 like it was “the World Series.” Laboy chalked it up to “just one of those years” and was puzzled by his performance.

Scrapping his original plans to take the winter off, Laboy headed back to winter ball to try to get back the magic of his ’69 season. Unfortunately, Laboy was hampered by a knee injury suffered on opening day of the Puerto Rican Winter League and had to undergo surgery at the end of the winter session. Despite surgery, Laboy was still slowed by the injury and played sparingly in the ’71 season. He hit .252 in 151 ABs with just one home run as a spot player for the Expos.

Laboy was ready to start the 1972 campaign in the minors with the Peninsula Whips of the International League but injured his knee in spring training with the Expos and was forced to undergo surgery again. Laboy didn’t give up and returned to Peninsula and played well enough to get a short call-up in July and again in September. Similar to his ’69 rookie season, Laboy showed flashes again. In 28 games, Laboy hit .261 with 3 HRs and 14 RBIs including .277 in the 22 September games.

Laboy nearly won the starting third base job out of spring training in 1973 but Bob Bailey edged him out for the job. Bailey struggled and Laboy got tapped to step into the starting role again. He could not hold on to the spot and by the end of May was back in the minors. His ’73 major league season ended at .121 with just 1 HR in 22 games.

The Expos released Laboy at the end of the season. He returned to Puerto Rico and worked for the Puerto Rican government, specializing in children’s programs. Laboy’s five years of service qualified him for a major league pension. His son, Alberto, played amateur ball but suffered a similar knee injury that cut his career short, also.

On October 4, 1972, Laboy batted sixth and was followed by fellow September call-up, rookie Pepe Mangual, in the lineup. The significance? Laboy and Mangual were cousins. Both Laboy and Mangual had hits that day but the Expos lost to the Mets, 3-1.

Jeff Stone
(Outfielder, Phillies ’83-’87, Orioles ’88, Rangers ’89, Red Sox ’89-’90)

Signed by the Phillies in the 1979 offseason at just 18 years old, the fleet-footed outfielder was actually a pitcher with a 90-mph fastball in high school. The Phillies were convinced that speed on the base paths was much more valuable than speed on the mound and converted him to the outfield. Stone worked his way through the Phillies minor league system and earned a September call-up at the end of the 1983 season after a stellar AA stint with the Eastern League champion Reading Phillies. Stone earned MVP honors in the Eastern League with a .317 average, 90 steals and 109 runs scored. Called in to pinch run in the ninth inning of a tie game, Stone stole second but failed to score. He played in 8 more games that September and went 3-for-4 with 2 triples and 4 steals.

Despite doing everything he needed to do, Stone started the 1984 season back in the minors with the Portland Beavers, but he was getting the hype. One American League scout speculated that Stone could be a “lefthanded-hitting Rickey Henderson-or better.” When Len Matuszek broke his finger in June, the first-place Phillies called up Stone from Portland, who had been tearing it up in AAA ball with a .314 average, 11 triples, 7 HRs, 28 RBIs and 26 steals. After going 0-for-4, Stone hit safely in 11 straight games and by July 3, Stone was batting .463 with 6 steals in his first 12 games. A knee injury to Joe Lefebvre kept Stone in the show for good and while the Phillies collapsed, Stone looked like he might live up to the hype. He hit .362 in 51 games and added 6 triples and 27 steals.

While most of the positions were up for grabs going into the 1985 season, one was surely not. “For one thing, Jeff Stone will be my left fielder,” said manager John Felske in a spring training comment to a Sporting News report. Two years from a National League crown, the Phillies were in rebuilding mode from their “Wheeze Kids” days. The Phils were so sold on Stone that he became their poster boy. They even built an ad campaign around him announcing the beginning of the “Stone Age.” Stone looked good at the start of the ’85 campaign and was hitting .300 at the end of April. Soon, though, he slumped and Felske’s brimming spring training confidence turned to criticism.

A natural raw talent, Stone’s slump led to tinkering by Felske and the coaches. Paul Owens, Stone’s first major league manager had moved to the front office and his advice to Stone was thrown out the window. Owens, in a 1992 interview with Sports Illustrated, called Jeff Stone a player “you don’t fool with. He went on to say, “My advice to Stonie was, ‘You see the ball, you hit it and you run.’ And (Stone) said, ‘That makes sense.’” But Felske was critical of Stone’s approach. Owens elaborated further, “When (Felske and the coaches) started messing with him, he started thinking. And he wound up getting so confused, he forgot how to play.”

Stone was never considered overly bright. He struggled to memorize strategies and statistics, pickoff moves and outfield positioning. Even during his high school days, he never worked with signs. His catcher was his brother Jerome and he just treated it like a simple game of catch. The team’s president at the time was Bill Giles and he later commented that Stone “couldn’t absorb a lot of instruction” and that coaches and managers tried to make him “more than he was capable of being.”

Stone was platooned at points during the ’85 season and benched at other points. In an interview with The Pitch, a weekly newspaper in Kansas City, Stone looked back on the ’85 season as the downfall of his major league career. “No matter what I did, it wasn’t good enough. If Felske had left me alone and left me in the lineup, I would have become the player I should have become.” Stone failed to shake the slump and recalled sleepless nights as he wondered if the next mistake would send him out of town. On a Pittsburgh road trip, teammates advised Stone to start counting sheep to help combat his insomnia. Stone responded, “They don’t have sheep in Pittsburgh.”

By mid-June, Stone was back in Portland, Maine playing for the Phillies AAA affiliate. He returned to the Phillies in late August and was able to show positive signs as he hit .290 in 36 games and finished the ’85 season at .265 and 15 steals, a huge drop off from his breakout year.

Stone started the ’86 season in the minors again but was an early May call-up. He showed some improvement over his sophomore slump. In 82 games, Stone hit .277 with 19 steals and 32 runs scored. While he was improved, they were mediocre for a player the team was counting on as the Phils’ lead-off man of the future and a far cry from Ricky Henderson-like numbers.

In 1987, Stone again started the season in the minors. When Mike Easler went down, Stone was recalled to take his spot on the roster. Stone’s return sparked a hot streak for the struggling Phillies who went 10-4 during his return. Despite the spark, Stone was sent down when Easler returned from the disabled list. Stone returned to the team on July 20, but was only able to crack the starting lineup four times (the team went 3-1 in those games) and was used almost exclusively as a pinch hitter and pinch runner. Stone was ineffective in his new role and finished the ’87 season at .256 and just 3 steals in 66 games.

The offseason was a tumultuous one for Stone. The Phillies were shopping him, but not seeing the right offers in return and Stone’s agent, Arm Tellem, had put the Phillies on notice that Stone would refuse an assignment to the minors to test the free agent market if the Phillies were not willing to put him on their Opening Day roster. He was unhappy with the way he was being treated in Philadelphia and wanted out. On March 21, 1988, Stone got his wish when he was traded with Keith Hughes and Rick Schu to the Baltimore Orioles for Mike Young and a player to be named later.

Stone’s new lease on major league life did not start the way he wanted it to, though. The infamous ’88 Orioles started the season 0-21 and Jeff played a big part in the worst losing streak to open a season. He appeared in the first 20 of the 21 games during the streak before a dislocated middle finger sidelined him. During the streak, Stone batted .137 with 4 steals and began the year in a 1-for-32 slump. He also contributed on the base paths with several base running blunders. In one game he tried to go from first to third on a grounder and was thrown out, killing a rally. When asked if he thought if Stone had been playing injured, then Orioles manager Frank Robinson said, “I sure hope so.” Stone headed back to the minors to rehabilitate his injury and did not make it back to the majors until mid-September. Ironically, the team went 1-6 in games where Stone appeared. He finished the ’88 season at an abysmal .164 in 61 at bats and was released by the team in the offseason.

The Texas Rangers invited Stone to their minor league camp in 1989 and he was quickly back in the majors when Buddy Bell suffered an early season injury, but failed to impress in his stint with the club, hitting just .167 in 22 games. He was sent down to the minors and purchased by the Boston Red Sox in mid-June. He joined the Red Sox major league club late in the ’89 season and went 3-for-15 (.200) in 18 games. It looked like Stone’s career was close to an end.

Stone spent most of the 1990 season in the minors but got his usual September call-up. This was eerily similar to his call-up in ’83 with the Phillies as the Sox were in the middle of a pennant race. Tied with the Toronto Blue Jays, Boston had blown an early 4-0 lead and a 5-4 lead in the ninth. They were able to rally in the ninth and tie the game against Tom Henke. With the bases loaded, up stepped Stone to the plate. Stone expected to be pulled for a pinch hitter but manager Joe Morgan put his faith in Jeff Stone. And Stone delivered, lacing a line drive to right center and knocking in the winning run. It was his only hit in 1990 but it was the one that put the Red Sox ahead of the Blue Jays for good. “I’m on Cloud 10,” said Stone after the game… not overly bright.

Stone was shocked to learn that the Red Sox released him soon after the 1990 season. Despite fan mail from thankful Red Sox fans who kept sending him videotapes of the game-winning hit, there were no phone calls from any major league team with a job offer for Stone. As he came to terms with the inevitable end, Stone pursued his other childhood dream, to be a police officer. After being shot at 16 times, Stone walked away from that job and got a job at a steel mill working 12-hour days.

But Jeff Stone’s baseball story didn’t end there. In 1995, a strange call came Stone’s way in the form of the Phillies’ Giles. As the player’s strike lingered, the major league teams scrambled for replacement players and the Phillies wanted Jeff to play. He sought out the advice of his former high school coach Bob McCullough who encouraged him to go for it. When McCullough had a stroke and died two days later, Stone decided he would do it for Bob. Despite a solid spring training, Stone realized he didn’t love the game enough to play it anywhere and when the labor strike ended, Stone returned home.

If you thought Stone’s baseball career seemed a bit unlucky, his post-baseball life made his baseball career look like The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Stone continued to work 12-hour days at the steel mill until he suffered a serious car accident in 2001 when another driver ran the only light in town and hit Stone. Stone broke his hip and shattered his ankle. In 2002, Stone got into an argument with his wife, Linda, who stabbed him several times, puncturing his lung. Despite this, Stone is still married to Linda today.

Stone did leave behind a legacy of tales regarding his country bumpkin-like behavior. Some referred to these as “Stonie stories.” While the location changes from writing to writing, during a night game in the minors, Stone asked a teammate, “Is this the same moon that shines back in Missouri?” Another story had Stone in a restaurant where he was asked if he would like a shrimp cocktail before dinner. Stone responded to the waitress, “No thanks. I don’t drink.” The most told “Stonie story” came about after he returned from winter baseball in Venezuela. Stone complained to a teammate that he was bored and no longer had a television to watch. When he was asked about what happened, he replied that he left his television in Venezuela because it was broken. “It only gets Spanish stations.”